Peter Chen

Dr Peter John Chen is a senior lecturer in Australian politics, public policy and media at the University of Sydney. He is the Author of Australian Politics in a Digital Age (2013), and is writing a book on animal welfare policy making in Australia.

With the election of Bill Shorten to the ALP leadership, we now have a chance to reflect on what may be Kevin Rudd's most significant decision during his 2013 premiership: the introduction of direct participation of Labor members in the selection of their leader.

Chris Bowen emailed ALP members and supporters at 2.34pm AEDT Sunday to let them know "first" the outcome, but the real winners of this experiment in party democracy are uncertain.

While Labor's new leadership rules have put the party in a fighting position, Bill Shorten himself starts off as opposition leader with less legitimacy than he otherwise would have had.

For the ALP, the election is clearly not going as planned. With polling delivering bad news and Kevin Rudd at risk of losing his seat, his return to office looks to have delivered only the most transient of bounces.

Should their polling continue to decline at the current rate, the party will be close to the level that generated the final spill by election day.

While the Liberal campaign hasn't been without its problems, it's been the Labor strategists that are finding they can't get any traction.

The beginning of the formal election period hasn't been a policy-free zone, but if you looked at the headlines you'd hardly know it.

From Rudd dropping the "f-bomb" to #sexappeal hitting Twitter's top-trending terms mid-week, media old and new are having a lot of fun with our hapless leaders' missteps.

While some public gaffes on the campaign trail may reveal hidden truths about our politicians, many can simply be attributed to tripping over words, exhaustion, or distraction. We need to be able to tell the difference.

Since the return to the ALP leadership of Kevin Rudd on June 27, the two major parties have accelerated their strange convergence dance.

All of this convergence will have implications for the election. Now that the mutual business of negative neutralisation has occurred, the convergent parties will now attempt to highlight their differences.